I Try Hard
by MistyWing
Summary: He gently lifts one sleek, chocolate brown eyebrow and sighs at me. "Why do you try so hard to embarrass yourself?"
1. Smiley Face

**Yes, another short piece I've written out of pure boredom. It is AU and set at the time where everybody is a teenager and peer pressure plays a significant role in their lives. This particular narrative is light and pretty much as Sakura-like as I can make it. It is rated T for teenage pregnancy, but like I said, Sakura's narrative is clean. Clean of profanity that is. I thought I could try a hand at this kind of narrative work again. I think sometimes it's rather fun and challenging. Please, feel free to tell me what you think. Heck, flame on (only if you critique, too). Yeah, I'm in a good mood, so I'm letting a few things slide.**

**Disclaimer: Sakura Kinomoto and Syaoran Li are not mine. Obviously. Duh. Like. Whatever. – Ahahaha… You can all hate me for sounding like a brainless blob tonight. I like taking on new roles.**

The things I do for my friends astound me. The things I do for my friends are beyond what I might do for myself. I am the greatest gift to all of human kind and that is not debatable, my friend. I jump hurdles for them, eat dirt for them, and kiss butts for them. Yes, that's me. I do everything for my friends even take a bullet for them.

I love Naoko, my best friend. She appreciates what I do for her, what I have done for her. I guess there are cruel and unusual conditions to this friendship, but I don't think Naoko meant for there to be conditions. It is my choice to help a friend in need. You cannot refuse someone clawing at your skirt as she crawled at your feet like some four-legged creature with bark and no bite. If you have a heart too, you would have gone with her every whim.

I grimace as I stand next to the gaping automatic doors of the drug store, dreading what I am about to do. The things that got one foot in first is that nagging voice saying, 'It's all for your best friend' and that memory of the cute pouting face of the best friend incessantly thanking you after you agree to do her a favor. I certainly cannot put off these things, lose my nerve, and dart out of there like a scared kitten. I cannot think for myself at such a crucial point of our teenage lives. No.

So... Here's the game plan I am walking through at this very moment. I grab a basket and go to the groceries aisle. I pick a few chocolate bars from the sweets section and slowly, but steadily edge to the Health Aids aisle. I look at a very nice and tight foot wrap that will fit my aching soles quite perfectly. Then, I twiddle my thumbs and skip further down the aisle holding a box of foot wrap. I toss that box in the basket and in the same motion snatch one of those pregnancy tests. I am burning up like a summer heat wave in the middle of a winter solstice. This is not part of the game plan.

I mean, me snatching that pregnancy test is the main reason for a game plan. Me-boiling like a festering sore is not part of the game plan. I am supposed to be smooth and calm, if not incognito. I am still wearing my school uniform, darn it. Naoko had better not be pregnant, dog gone it. I just might have a seizure, fudge it. Crud. I think I see someone with the same school colors go into the aisle next to mine.

Well, I walk up and down the aisle for a minute longer, trying to come up with some sneaky plan to get away without having to spend every yen in my pocket for just a stupid pregnancy test. Goodbye month's savings if I have to buy candy that I don't want to eat and a foot wrap that probably does not fit my extra small foot.

I sweat. There is no avoiding this. Naoko will only reimburse me for this one stupid little box with a stick in it. I set no conditions for a friend in need. I straighten my back and square my shoulders as I march to the counter run by a young woman a couple of years my senior. She rings my items up and puts them in a plastic bag, but when she gets to the last item she pauses and finally looks up to stare at me. I sweat beady balloons of sweat and I get the feeling that someone coming up behind me is also staring daggers into my backside. I am as rigid as a doe caught in a set of headlights.

"Would you like this in a separate bag?" The stupid clerk girl asks very loudly.

I want to tear one at her. 'Why are you being so loud and obnoxious, you stupid woman?' Uhn, but I dare not be rude and just take the box from that fluttering hand. "No," I croak. I turn with the box still in my hand and the purchases in a separate bag are in my other hand. I don't pay much attention when I get nervous.

I turn and walk right into a solid human wall, wearing my school colors; the gray-blue blazer over a white shirt and navy tie. He wears black slacks instead of my black knee-length skirt. Dang it! Syaoran Li! Out of all people, it has to be the one guy who hates my guts.

How do I know he hates me? It's simple. When my teacher paired us up the first time, she calls out my name and his name. Immediately after she announces us as a pair, Syaoran Li goes, "who?" One year later, we wind up in the same class and he still calls me "hey you." Only a guy who hates my guts will refuse to remember my name.

The boy grunts at me and gives me a disdainful look as my face bounces off his chest. The fire in his eyes are lethal and the only sound that comes out of my horrified body is "eep." He is the one who snatches the dreaded thing that falls out of my hand in midair. Syaoran Li looks at it and glances back at me. His glare is deadly as it stays longer on me. My pregnancy test is back in my possession and I see a yellow balloon face with the two black dots and a wide U. That is what's on the pregnancy box. Seriously.

"You're in my way," he says, looking through my face and behind my shoulder at the stupid clerk girl.

"It's not what you think!" I blurt out as I hover over his elbow, desperate to explain myself.

"I don't know what not to think," he merely stated in a grumble.

This boy will be the bane of my existence if I do not attempt to redeem and explain myself.

"This is merely for…"

"Cheerleader, you don't have to explain your personal life to me. What you do or who you hit it off with is not my business."

I blink in shock and point at him. He went cross-eyed staring at my pointer as I state, "You know I'm a cheerleader."

"Kinomoto, I know what you are and any jock in our school can be the father."

Okay. Seizure time.


	2. Yellow Brick Road

That guy has it all wrong! Believe me when I tell you that I spent the rest of my school day the next day trying to get a hold of him and tell him that it is all a big misunderstanding. I guess I am lucky in the sense that he does not bother to give me the time of day and thus I fail to punish myself further by going blank after explaining that it is all a big misunderstanding. I mean, I have no idea what to tell him after that. I certainly cannot tell him that the test is for my friend because like he figured out my name and my identity at school he most likely will figure out which friend of mine might be pregnant. Dang it all to a flowing pit of lava. I left a pile of chocolate bars on his desk to make up for yesterday. I see him eating one before gym class and one after lunch. He probably stashes the rest in his locker.

I am terrified that he might spread the news about my false pregnancy around the whole school community. I tell you; I have discovered the bane of my existence. You laugh. See? You're laughing. It is obvious that I have never given such adamant attention to one individual in my life. He isn't even a friend of mine. I have always thought that the fact that he is not even on a conversational basis with me is as well known as the fact that I am terrible at mathematics. Now, how do I explain myself when in practice, all the girls sequester me and starts making me convulse?

"Do you have the hots for him?"

"Finally, you notice the hottest guy in this dilapidated institution."

"How many times did you try asking him out?"

"How many times have you been turned down?"

"I think you two might look cute together."

"You sure are desperate, Sakura."

"You're like so like on him like a leech in heat."

"Totally."

I look at Naoko, in need of friend service, but she shakes her head at me and gives me this pleading look. I take the hit. I become the punching bag, the clown they laugh at, the cheerleader who is pregnant and chasing after Syaoran Li like some street girl of the Red-Light District! My charitable heart insists that I make myself into the one person I don't even know how to take on the role of even if you hand me a million yen to do the part.

Syaoran Li refuses to listen to me, the girls think I'm in love with him, my best friend is pregnant, and I am stressed out. When I am stressed out, my time of the month erratically comes and goes. This time it is a week early. I make a mad dash to another drug store nearby right after practice. My hormones are wild. I feel like crying. I feel like digging a ditch and burying Naoko in it. I feel like breaking into someone's locker and eating all his chocolate. I feel like doing things I normally do not consider doing. Period.

I hurriedly grab a pack of pads and stomp up to the counter to make my purchase. I'm wheezing as the male clerk glances down at the money I leave at the counter.

"You're short," he says to me, even though he is not looking at me. He's looking at the customer waiting patiently behind me.

I take off a shoe and pull off my sock. My luck, I still have a bill in there.

"Still short."

"No I'm not!" I whine, close to tears. Evil male clerk!

The customer behind me leans over me and his gray-blue clad arm swoops in to place an extra bill on the countertop. He covers for my shortness. I am forever grateful to… Oh no. Not again. Syaoran Li.

He gives me a curious look, his amber eyes glinting in intrigue. The corner of his mouth twitches a little like he might be laughing at me. I feel my eyes burn and the only sound coming out of my trembling body is 'eh.'

"She's with me," he says. The evil male clerk nods at him and gathers both our purchases in a single plastic baggie.

My savior leads me all the way down to the back of the store. "You're just buying them to build a little yellow pathway that's like the one in The Wizard of Oz." Syaoran Li finally turns to me and I look up to see that we are standing next to a restroom.

He says to me, "I'll stand out here while you do whatever it is you need to do."

"Why?"

"Because you're in a lot of pain, Kinomoto."

Darn right, I am in a lot of pain. Not the kind of pain he thinks I might be going through, but it is more of a mental pain. I open my mouth to tell him this, but he raises his hand to stop me.

"I don't want to know."

I gape. "Because it's not any of your business?"

He shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets, our purchases dangling about his wrist. "Sure."

I go inside in a hurry and jostle the lock for a while.

"Syaoran," I call, "the lock is broken."

"That's why I'm standing out here," is his muffled reply.

I am so enormously grateful I plan to buy the boy a truckload of chocolate once I make my first billion yen. "Syaoran!"

"What?"

"I can't be pregnant," I state, haughtily and all.

Not a word comes from him. Not only am I grateful, I think I am also relieved beyond comparability.

Okay. Cry time.

* * *

**Hi All; **

**All of you are so kind to leave nice notes and comments for the last chapter. I hope you continue doing so for this update. Maybe it's not what you expected, but it's short and sweet, aye? One more chapter to post up and that will end this short project of mine. Then, I can go back to finishing everything I started a half a decade ago. Unless I get distracted again by floating ideas that hit the ground. See you all later.**

**Your dear MistyWing signing off.**


	3. Mickey Mouse

My friends have convinced me to go shopping for lingerie with them. I literally broke my piggy bank to make it through this sparse spree. They don't know the amounts of blood and sweat I have to squirt from myself to make it through this devastating week. Only Naoko knows. Outside this party, I think maybe Syaoran Li knows. In school nowadays, I can give him a smile and he gives me a curt nod as a sign of greeting. I realize that it is one of Syaoran Li's many infamous traits.

"If you don't want to go you should just say so," he says to me just the day before. He obviously has been eavesdropping on my conversation with the girls.

"Do I look like I don't want to go?" I ask him, cheerfully. I also give him a trademark glare I hope he recognize as his.

"Yes," he says, curtly.

That is all of our conversation of that day. At least he talks to me now and then. It might be one small step for Syaoran-kind, but it sure as heck is one giant leap from 'who?' or 'hey you.'

He is insanely right, though. The reason I don't want to go isn't that I'm broke. I actually don't want to go because I'm not like _them_. I don't have a single sexy bone to show off, so what was the point of shopping for lingerie? Well, Naoko says that I can accompany them just as a companion with a grain of mind and sense to judge what is or is not sexy. What the freak is she talking about? She knows I am not a sexy connoisseur. I cannot even tell the difference between a squash and a potato. There are many things I cannot single out and among those things are sexy things.

I do end up buying something at the lingerie shop, though. It turns out to be the only item I can afford on my sad budget. This purchase happens to be a lacey black bra. I often wonder why they sell bras like this if some people don't plan on showing off their underwear in public. I often wonder why people buy a pricey bra from a woman's undergarment store for the price of three bras from the department store. As you can see, I am a hypocrite and like all hypocrites, I do the exact opposite of what I believe in. I go and buy an A-32 sexy thing in black lace. There goes the rest of next week's lunch money.

Of course, being Sakura Kinomoto also means that there's always something worse than financial problems. The snotty young cashier clerk packs my sexy number in white tissue paper and stuffs it in a pink paper bag. Before I can take the bag from her hands, one of the girls seize my sexy number and shouts for all to hear.

"Sakura's a cup size A! She's only a cup size A."

Naoko snaps at the girl. "She's well proportioned. Why do you think all the guys want to date her?"

I guffaw at this piece of news. "What?"

"You're exaggerating! She's the smallest girl in our school, Naoko!"

I grab a hold of my best friend's arm. I suddenly become very self-conscientious about the way I look because everyone starts chanting "Sakura's an A… Sakura's an A…" The question I have for Naoko about that 'guys and dating' comment gets lost in the chant. It is extremely hard to remember things when people keep telling you your chest size is inadequate.

I get upset very easily. I take my bag and run as fast as I can out that store and down the street. The whole time I keep worrying about shaking off my friends, I am careening around the city like a scared kitten that I am; scared of who I am; scared of what they think of me; scared of my own creeping shadow. I try hard to fit in, yet I try hard to keep everything at bay.

I slam to a crushing halt as I collided against a poor pedestrian. Both of us fly backwards in opposite directions.

I slowly push myself off the pavement, but remain sprawled down there. The only sound that comes out of my shocked body is 'ow.' Come on! Give me a break. I focus my blurry vision on the guy in front of me who seems as shocked and dizzy as I. He's staring at me with those round amber eyes. Then, he gently lifts one sleek, chocolate brown eyebrow and sighs at me.

"Why do you try so hard…" He starts, but stops because he sees me paling.

I'm sorry. All I can do is keep staring at him with my sexy number over his head. You know. Like Mickey Mouse ears. They are proportional to the size of his head.

Syaoran Li pulls the lace bra off his head and stares, dumbstruck. It takes him a full minute before he helps me wrap it up again and return it to the bag as if it is nothing; as if nothing I do ever bothers him anymore.

"Kinomoto, why do you try so hard to embarrass yourself?"

I let out a shaky breath. Remember I'm still winded by the hard crash and I think I'm suffering from some whiplash because it hurts to stand. "What?" I believe I am beginning to sound like a broken record.

He good-naturedly leers at me. "You heard me."

He gives me his hand and pulls me to my feet. "I do not try so hard to do that!" I retort.

"Yes, you do." He starts walking, still holding my bag in his hand.

I find myself following in step with him. I feel this pain in my gut, belly, lower abdomen, and really everywhere. There is going to be an explosion deep within me and I will not be able to control the pieces that are going to pierce my insides. It's already happening. I can't explain it.

"Kinomoto," he says rather gruffly.

I must have been saying something and stopped without realizing it, but the sudden cessation of conversation does not flow well with this Syaoran Li character. Syaoran Li does not like being left on the cut off end. I don't think anybody does, but a thought just crosses my mind. I have realized that with this guy I can just be myself. I don't have to be God's greatest gift to the world. I don't have to be the preppy cheerleader with a hoard of friends. I don't have to be a best friend's mop. With Syaoran Li, I can go as low as I want and still accept his helping hand without a shame takeover.

I might do something else now. Like burn this sexy number. Better yet, return it and get a full refund because we all know how much I need the money.

Okay. Laugh time.

* * *

**Hello.**

**I was organizing all my completed and non-completed works on my computer just a second ago. Do you know I own an expansive collection of writing works? I had no idea until I started doing some housecleaning on this 10-yr-old machinery. These works have had multiple homes since the beginning of time becauseI tend to move files around and backup said files. Sadly, right now I don't have room to backup some of these large and newer files. My largest archive seems to be CCS! Not a shocker. I have 2 other unloaded stories that are kinda iffy right now. I tend to not upload things that are iffy. Don't hate me for it. I will someday get future and past stuff up for your pastime.**

**You guys and girls are really the bestest of the best. I enjoy writing for all of you and I can't imagine ever completely stopping. I love reading all your reviews and private messages. They give me new inspirations.**

**Much Love,**

**MistyWing  
**


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